AUTO sharp/flat change to natural-sharp/natural-flat if there's double-sharp/double-flat before

• Sep 25, 2019 - 01:03
Reported version
3.2
Type
Functional
Frequency
Once
Severity
S5 - Suggestion
Status
closed
Regression
No
Workaround
Yes
Project
MuseScore

See PR #5337. I intended to fix #279179: Natural-sharp/natural-flat not recognized as same accidental as sharp/flat and #293984: Natural accidental doesn't automatically come up for natural notes after a natural-sharp/natural-flat one with it but I implemented this as well. Now that PR #5341 provides a quick fix of those two issues and is compatible with PR #5337, I'm now changing PR #5337 to "fixing" this issue.

Comments

• Dec 27, 2019 - 16:59

On page 81 of Behind Bars, Elaine Gould writes:
"When a double flat is cancelled by a single flat, and a double sharp by a single sharp, the traditional practice of placing a natural sign before these is redundant, since a single flat or sharp sign cannot mean anything else".

Gould is very clearly recommending against using natural-sharp and natural-flat. It is good that we allow these to be added, but it would be a mistake to have them appear automatically when the user does not want them. I do not think that this idea has any merit at all.

Reply

• Dec 28, 2019 - 12:56

Although Mrs. Gould said so, it's a courtesy-accidental.
This has a place of use: just as we use natural (or natural with parenthesis) for the next measurement after using the accidental in one measurement.
In classical, folk and jazz traditions, this may be considered differently.
And it's nice to have an option.

Reply